Argues that the alignment of the distributive schemes to the system of dividing lineage and land was influenced by Christian numeric symbolism, discussing in particular the model exposed in Bechbretha.
Emphasises the role of the O’Doran legal family in the transmission of the Prologue on the grounds of their association with the main text in MS Harley 432.
Patterson (Nerys): Gaelic law and the Tudor conquest of Ireland: the social background of the sixteenth-century recensions of the pseudo-historical prologue to the Senchas már.
Patterson (Nerys Thomas): Cattle-lords and clansmen: the social structure of early Ireland. 2nd ed.
Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1991. xv + 425 pp.
First publ. as Cattle-lords and clansmen: kinship and rank in early Ireland (New York: Garland, 1991).
Rev. by
Katharine Simms, in IHS 31, nº 121 (May, 1998), pp. 125-127 (2. ed.).
Matthew Stout, in History Ireland 1/3 (Autumn, 1993), pp. 59-60 (1. ed.).
Lisa M. Bitel, in Speculum 71/1 (Jan., 1996), pp. 188-190 (2. ed.).
Robin Chapman Stacey, in ZCP 47 (1995), pp. 272-275 (1. ed.).
[1.] Introduction; [2.] The gelḟine; [3.] The derbḟine; [4.] Additional kinship changes when ego’s grandsons come of age: the íarfine; [5.] Additional kinship changes when ego’s grandsons come of age: the indḟine; [6.] Reckoning kinship by hand; [7.] Summary of proposed model; [8.] Problems with MacNeill’s model; [9.] The problem of the sprightly great-grandfathers; [10.] The problem of the indeterminate gelḟine; [11.] Subsequent modifications to MacNeill’s model; [12.] Supporting evidence: incl. discussion of the relationship between íarmue ‘great-grandson’ and íarfine, and between indue ‘great-great-grandson’ and indḟine; [13.] Conclusion: the basis of the kinship system was
the three-generation gelḟine. vs. E. MacNeill, Celtic Ireland, 1921 (Best² 2136); D. Binchy, in PBA 29 (1943), p. 223; T. Charles-Edwards, Early Irish and Welsh kinship (Oxford, 1993); N. Patterson, in BBCS 37 (1990), pp. 133–165.